London-based South African artist says quitting booze was the best decision she ever made. Lethuxolo Nontokozo Buthelezi, known professionally as Toya Delazy, is celebrating a major milestone- a year of sobriety. Toya, who is the granddaughter of the late Mangosuthu Buthelezi and the great-granddaughter of Princess Magogo, a Zulu princess and traditional composer, took to social media and celebrated with a long post.

She told a story of how she ended up being hooked on alcohol. The singer who is married with a kid says it has been a year since she parted ways with the bottle. She shared with her followers about being a late bloomer and heavy drinker. “I’m one year sober today, I started drinking later than most, had my first drink at 17 – I never forgot that feeling of numbness and power, and as problems came with life, I saw alcohol as a friend,” she wrote. She said being sober for the first few months was one of the most difficult phases of her life because she was forced to face her challenges sober. “It was a difficult transition as all the emotions that had been swept under the rug stood in a towering heap and I had to deal with it sober,” she said. She added that the first three months felt like she was going to lose her mind.“All the holidays without liquor, the clubs, the festivals, I felt like I had lost my favourite dangerous toy. I stuck with it because each time I looked at my daughter, I knew she deserved a life free from the traumas I would have experienced,” she said. Without her young family especially her wife, Toya says her journey would not have been possible. She is grateful for their support. “I was gonna break the generational trauma, I wouldn’t be passing that down, she saved my life – Today is a year since I made that decision and I’m so proud of my willpower.

I am grateful to my wife for supporting me through that decision and journey, also long live the therapist. #sobriety,” she wroteThe multi-award winner says fame and fortune exposed her to heavy drinking. The Pump-it-on hitmaker added that being in suffocating institutions, booze felt like the solution to everything: “And I went in hard even though I really was a lightweight. Though I broke into the SA music scene with hit songs, deep down, I was suffering, I became the victim of my own successes,”. According to the royal princess, the SA music scene embraces accretive drinking. “It was free and the entire industry thrived on alcohol consumption. It felt like the higher the price, the cooler you were… I’m talking radio ads, music videos, clubbing, gigs, every single link-up involved alcohol, and I fell hard for it,” she continued.

The media-shy muso also dropped a bombshell that she started feeling empty and suicidal. She also revealed that for a moment she forgot about all her problems and that she felt isolated, alone, and misunderstood by those she loved the most, after a while there was no space left to hide these very intense emotions. “Each time I drank, everything would escalate very quickly.There would come a time when I would leave my body and the spirit of pain would consume me, and I would become very sad, angry, and eventually, suicidal. In 2022, I found a community that supported me and a counsellor I had to call every day for a month,” she concluded.